Hoopin' with the Blazers

New basketball cards are here. 

 

We're already halfway through February and more than a third of the way into the NBA season. It's strange, then, that 2020-21 NBA cards are just now hitting the shelves for the first time. I bought into a break from Rip City Cards (no relation to the real Rip City) and ended up picking up the Blazers team set multiple times over. This is probably the only way I'm going to be able to get new Blazers cards this year as the basketball card market is officially shadier than the drug trade these days.

There are just seven cards in the Trail Blazers team set, including four players that started the majority of the games last season, a would-be starter if he ever stayed healthy, a random bench guy and the team's second round draft pick. The draft pick is CJ Elleby, who went to school at Washington State. It's nice to see the team draft a Pac-12 guy. Elleby hasn't had a ton of minutes yet this season, which is to be expected for a second round pick, though he did have a big game in Philadelphia recently. Yes, Portland has two CJs now.

Here's the Dame card. This was taken at the Moda Center last season from one of their two home losses to the Lakers (not sure which night without checking that NBA jersey site). You can tell it's not from the playoffs because there are obviously people in the stands. I did notice that there are a few cards in the recent 2019-20 Hoops Premium set that have photos from the bubble, but it looks like Panini is trying to do what they can to avoid that here.

I just don't like this design at all, I'm afraid. As much as I liked the shot of Damian Lillard going to the hoop past Anthony Davis, this photo of the original CJ is just kind of awkward.

Here's the random bench guy. Anfernee Simons did play in 70 of the team's 74 games last season and had a fairly key role off the bench, but if you were limited to picking just one bench guy I would have expected Gary Trent Jr. to get the nod here.

Hassan Whiteside was one-and-done as a Trail Blazer, and his role diminished greatly with the return of Jusuf Nurkic as you would expect. Unlike normal years, it looks the new basketball sets (Hoops, Certified, Donruss, possibly Prizm) will not have any logos or indications of players that were traded or signed elsewhere in the offseason. Given that the Blazers have two new starters this year (three if you count Enes Kanter who has been filling in for Nurkic once again), it looks like I'll be waiting awhile add new Blazers to my team collection.

Zach Collins won a starting job at the start of last season, played a few games, got hurt, then came back and started again in the bubble... only to get hurt again. We may have seen the last of him as a Trail Blazer, but hopefully he can get his health and career back on track.
 

I also picked up a couple of purple parallels in the break. This doesn't really improve the design.

Melo's inclusion in the set was a no-brainer, of course. He agreed to a bench role this season and is playing for the league minimum for the second straight year, but he's found a lot of space to be a big contributor. If he continues on the tear that he's been on lately, he could make a strong case for 6th Man of the Year.

I wound up with just one insert card, and it's sort of a mess. I had to read it several times to realize it's called "Prime Twine"... which... yeah, I get it. In any case, it's nice to add another Dame insert to my team collection.

If you have any basketball cards that you think I might like, please hit me up. I'll be interested to find out how you're actually finding those cards. I have extra Blazers from this set if anyone is looking.